2001aef5coverv05b g - the crisis.pdf · studies in the muslim world. literary structures of...

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The Qurrsaquoaacuten and Its Biblical Subtext

This book challenges the dominant scholarly notion that the Qurrsquoan must be interpreted through the medieval commentaries shaped by the biography of the prophet Musammad proposing instead that the text is best read in light of Christian and Jewish scripture The Qurrsquoan in its use of allusions depends on the Biblical know ledge of its audience However medieval Muslim commentators working in a context of religious rivalry developed stories that separate Qurrsquoan and Bible which this book brings back together

In a series of studies involving the devil Adam Abraham Jonah Mary and Musammad among others Reynolds shows how modern translators of the Qurrsquoan have followed medieval Muslim commentary and demonstrates how an appreciation of the Qurrsquoanrsquos Biblical subtext uncovers the richness of the Qurrsquoanrsquos discourse Presenting unique interpretations of thirteen dif-ferent sections of the Qurrsquoan based on studies of earlier Jewish and Christian literature the author substantially re-evaluates Muslim exegetical literature Thus The Qur rdquoAn and Its Biblical Subtext a work based on a profound regard for the Qurrsquoanrsquos literary structure and rhetorical strategy poses a substantial challenge to the standard scholarship of Qurrsquoanic Studies With an approach that bridges early Christian history and Islamic origins the book will appeal not only to students of the Qurrsquoan but to students of the Bible religious studies and Islamic history

Gabriel Said Reynolds is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame ( USA) He works on Qurrsquoanic Studies and MuslimndashChristian Relations and is the author of A Muslim Theologian in the Sectarian Milieu the translator of lsquoAbd al-Jabbarrsquos A Critique of Christian Origins and the editor of The Qur rdquoAn in Its Historical Context

Routledge studies in the QuranSeries EditorAndrew RippinUniversity of Victoria Canada

In its examination of critical issues in the scholarly study of the Quran and its commentaries this series targets the disciplines of archaeology history textual history anthropology theology and literary criticism The contem-porary relevance of the Quran in the Muslim world its role in politics and in legal debates are also dealt with as are debates surrounding Quranic studies in the Muslim world

Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in the QurrsaquoaacutenEdited by Issa J Boullata

The Development of Exegesis in Early IslamThe authenticity of Muslim literature from the Formative PeriodHerbert Berg

Biblical Prophets in the Qurrsaquoaacuten and Muslim LiteratureRobert Tottoli

Moses in the Qurrsaquoaacuten and Islamic ExegesisBrannon M Wheeler

Logic Rhetoric and Legal Reasoning in the QurrsaquoaacutenGodrsquos argumentsRosalind Ward Gwynne

Textual Relations in the QurrsaquoaacutenRelevance coherence and structureSalwa M El-Awa

Satildef acirc Commentaries on the Qurrsaquoaacuten in Classical IslamKristin Zahra Sands

The Qurrsaquoan in Its Historical ContextGabriel Said Reynolds

Interpreting al-Tharsaquolabirsquos Tales of the ProphetsTemptation responsibility and lossMarianna Klar

The Qurrsaquoaacuten and Its Biblical SubtextGabriel Said Reynolds


Gabriel Said Reynolds

First published 2010by Routledge2 Park Square Milton Park Abingdon Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canadaby Routledge270 Madison Ave New York NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor amp Francis Group an informa business

copy 2010 Gabriel Said Reynolds

All rights reserved No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic mechanical or other means now known or hereafter invented including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers

British Library Cataloguing in Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication DataReynolds Gabriel Said

The Qurrsquoan and its biblical subtext Gabriel Said Reynoldsp cm ndash ( Routledge studies in the Qurrsquoan 10)

Includes bibliographical references and index1 KoranndashHermeneutics 2 KoranndashCriticism interpretation

etcndashHistory 3 IslamndashControversial literature I Title BP1302R49 20102971prime22601ndashdc22 2009035977

ISBN13 978-0-415-77893-0 ( hbk)ISBN13 978-0-203-85645-1 (ebk)ISBN10 0-415-77893-X ( hbk)ISBN10 0-203-85645-7 (ebk)

This edition published in the Taylor amp Francis e-Library 2010

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor amp Francis or Routledgersquoscollection of thousands of eBooks please go to wwweBookstoretandfcouk

ISBN 0-203-85645-7 Master e-book ISBN

To Luke Emmanuel and Theresa

Acknowledgements

Whatever contribution the present work makes if any will be in large part due to those scholars who have been my mentors during its composition Christopher Melchert of Oxford University Andrew Rippin of the Univer-sity of Victoria Sidney Grifth of the Catholic University of America Fred Donner of the University of Chicago and Tarif Khalidi of the American University of Beirut have all read the work at different stages They critiqued it in a manner that allowed me both to correct errors in its details and to improve my thinking about the substantial issues it addresses Throughout my work on this project John Cavadini of the University of Notre Dame has offered me guidance when I most needed it and supported me at the most difcult moments not without cost All of these scholars in assisting me have sacriced time and energy that could have been kept for their own projects and for no personal benet Their assistance has both humbled and inspired me

I have also beneted from generous nancial support during this project During the 2006 ndash 7 academic year I was able to pursue research in Jerusalem and Beirut as a Henry Luce III Fellow in Theology Later in 2007 I returned to both cities with the backing of a Fulbright Grant During the summers of 2008 and 2009 my research travel was supported by the University of Notre Dame Throughout my time at Notre Dame the Department of Theology in particular and the university in general have been extraordinarily supportive of my work and my academic vocation In the course of editing this work I have benefrac14ted from the careful proofreading of Hannah Hemphill and from the professional and judicious guidance of Kathy Auger of Graphicraft To her and to all of the supportive representatives of Routledge I am grateful

Finally I would to thank my family Lourdes my lovely wife and Luke Electious Emmanuel Joshua and Theresa Anne our children Together they have lled my life with laughter and taught me to live each day in thanksgiving

Contents

List of Abbreviations ix Introduction Listening to the text 1

1 The crisis of Qurrsaquoaacutenic Studies 3

The scholarly confrac12ict over the Qur rdquoAn 3 The format of the present work 23

Excursus regarding the dates of Jewish and Christian texts 37

2 Qurrsaquoaacutenic case studies 39

CS 1 The prostration of the angels 39 CS 2 al-Shayvan al-Raj cm 54 CS 3 Adam and feathers 64 CS 4 Abraham the Gentile monotheist 71 CS 5 The laughter of Abrahamrsquos wife 87 CS 6 Haman and the tower to heaven 97 CS 7 The transformation of Jews 106 CS 8 Jonah and his people 117 CS 9 The nativity of Mary 130 CS 10 ldquoOur hearts are uncircumcisedrdquo 147 CS 11 ldquoDo not think those who were killed in the

path of God deadrdquo 156 CS 12 The Companions of the Cave 167 CS 13 MuSammad 185

viii Contents

3 Qurrsaquoaacuten and tafseacuter 200

Exegetical devices 201Story-telling 201Occasion of revelation 206Variae lectiones (qirarsquoat) 208Tarsquokhcr al-muqaddam 214Judaeo-Christian material 217

The mufassiren 219 Tafscr and Qur rdquoAn 228

4 Reading the Qurrsaquoaacuten as homily 230

The problem of translating the Qur rdquoAn 231 Homiletic features of the Qur rdquoAn 232 The Qur rdquoAn and Christian homily 245 The Qur rdquoAn and its Biblical subtext 253

Bibliography 259 Index of QurrdquoAnic Verses 283 Index of Biblical Verses 292 Index of People Places and Subjects 296

Abbreviations

Sources

AEL An Arabic-English Lexicon ed E Lane London Williams and Norgate 1863 ndash 93

BEQ H Speyer Die biblischen Erzaumlhlungen im Qoran Graumlfenhainichen Schulze 1931 (reprint Hildesheim Olms 1961) F Rosenthal notes in ldquoThe history of Heinrich Speyerrsquos Die biblischen Erzaumlhlungen im Qoranrdquo (see bibliography entry) that the original publication information is false The printing was only com-pleted in 1937 and then under the direction of the Marcus family in Breslau

BT Babylonian TalmudBSOAS Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African StudiesCSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum OrientaliumEI 2 The Encyclopaedia of Islam 2nd edition Leiden Brill 1954 ndash

presentEQ The Encyclopaedia of the Qur rdquoAn ed J McAuliffe Leiden Brill

2001ndash 6FV A Jeffery The Foreign Vocabulary of the Qur rdquoAn Baroda

Oriental Institute 1938 Reprint Leiden Brill 2007GdQ1 2 3 1 1st edition T Noumlldeke Geschichte des QorAns Goumlttingen

Verlag der Dieterichschen Buchhandlung 1860 2 2nd edition Noumlldekersquos revised work being titled therein Uumlber den Ursprung des QorAns and including F Schwally Die Sammlung des QorAns ed and revised F Schwally Leipzig Weicher 1909 1919 3 2nd edition including G Bergstraumlsser and O Pretzl Die Geschichte des Koran-texts Leipzig Weicher 1938 reprint 3 vols in 1 Hildesheim Olms 1970

JAOS Journal of the American Oriental SocietyJNES Journal of Near Eastern StudiesJRAS Journal of the Royal Asiatic SocietyJSAI Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and IslamJSS Journal of Semitic Studies

x Abbreviations

KU J Horovitz Koranische Untersuchungen Berlin de Gruyter 1926

LCD Comparative Dictionary of Ge ldquoez ed W Leslau Wiesbadan Harrassowitz 1987

LJ L Ginzberg Legends of the Jews trans H Szold Philadelphia Jewish Publication Society of America 1988

MIDEO Meacutelanges de lrsquoInstitut dominicain drsquoeacutetudes orientales du CaireMQQ Mu ldquojam al-qirA rdquoAt al-Qur rdquoAniyya ed Asmad lsquoUmar and lsquoAbd

al-lsquofl Mukarram Tehran Dar al-Uswa li-l-pibalsquoa wa-l-Nashr 1426

MW The Muslim (or in earlier volumes Moslem) WorldNTA New Testament Apocrypha ed W Schneemelcher trans R Wilson

Cambridge J Clarke amp Co 1991OC Oriens Christianus (serial)OIC T Andrae Les origines de lrsquoislam et le christianisme trans

J Roche Paris Adrien-Maisonneuve 1955 Originally published in German as ldquoDer Ursprung des Islams und das Christentumrdquo Kyrkshistorisk aringrsskrift 23 1923 149 ndash 206 24 1924 213 ndash 25 25 1925 45 ndash112

PG Patrologia GraecaPL Patrologia LatinaPO Patrologia OrientalisQHC The Qur rdquoAn in Its Historical Context ed GS Reynolds London

Routledge 2007QS J Wansbrough Quranic Studies Sources and Methods of Scrip-

tural Interpretation Oxford Oxford University Press 1977 Reprint Amherst NY Prometheus 2004

SI Studia IslamicaTB J Kugel Traditions of the Bible A Guide to the Bible as It Was

at the Start of the Common Era Cambridge MA Harvard University Press 1998

TS R Payne Smith Thesaurus Syriacus Tome I Oxford E Typo-grapheo Clarendoniano 1879 Tome 2 1901

ZDMG Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenlaumlndischen Gesellschaft

Biblical abbreviations

Gn GenesisEx ExodusChr ChroniclesMt Gospel of MatthewMk Gospel of MarkLk Gospel of LukeJn Gospel of JohnActs Acts of the Apostles

Abbreviations xi

R Rabba (thus eg Gn R = Genesis Rabba)LXX SeptuagintPsh Peshitta

Language abbreviations

Ar ArabicGk GreekHeb HebrewSyr Syriac

Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene

In the case studies (Chapter 2) italicized words are transliterations Under-lined words are provisional translations Unless otherwise stated Biblical translations are from the New Jerusalem Bible

IntroductionListening to the text

The present work is largely a response to the difculties that scholars have in explaining large parts of the Qurrsquoan Scholarly difculties are nothing strange of course but there is something particularly intriguing about this case For the most part scholars of the Qurrsquoan accept the basic premise of the medieval Islamic sources that the Qurrsquoan is to be explained in light of the life of the Prophet Musammad The life of the Prophet meanwhile is recorded in those sources with intricate detail This detailed information one might assume should allow scholars to explain at least the literal meaning of the Qurrsquoan without difculty But it does not

Perhaps the most salient example of this problem is the work of William Montgomery Watt In his books MuSammad at Mecca and MuSammad at Medina1 Watt following Islamic sources provides details on every aspect of the Prophetrsquos life from his family to his relations with his neighbors and friends to his military and diplomatic strategies Yet in his book Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn Watt consistently notes how much is unknown about the Qurrsquoan from the chronological order of its proclamation to the mysterious letters that open 29 Seras to obscure vocabulary throughout the text2 The method of reading the Qurrsquoan through the life of the Prophet seems not to have served Watt well Nevertheless Watt and other scholars argue (or in some cases assume) that the Qurrsquoan must be viewed through the lens of Musammadrsquos biography For Watt this is not one method of reading the text it is the only method

The present work is meant as a challenge to this state of affairs at least in part This is not a work of history and I will not examine let alone rewrite the biography of the Prophet My concern is only to develop a fruitful method of reading the Qurrsquoan And yet the Qurrsquoan is not a text that renders its secret easily There is as has often been noted nothing that approaches a true

1 WM Watt MuSammad at Mecca Oxford Oxford University Press 1953 idem MuSammad at Medina Oxford Oxford University Press 1956

2 WM Watt and R Bell Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn 2nd edition Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 1977 (1st edition 1970)

2 The QurrdquoAn and Its Biblical Subtext

narrative in the Qurrsquoan the story of Joseph (Q 12) notwithstanding Instead the Qurrsquoan seems to direct the reader through allusions and references to certain traditions which provide the basis for appreciating its message The Qurrsquoan awakens the audiencersquos memory of these traditions and then proceeds without pause to deliver its religious message This means in other words that the task of reading the Qurrsquoan is a task of listening and response The audience must follow the Qurrsquoanrsquos lead to some subtext of traditions

This dynamic is raised by Salwa El-Awa in a recent article She comments ldquoIf recipients of the Qurrsquoanic text lack access to the knowledge they need to process the meanings of its language they are unlikely to succeed in uncover-ing the intended meaningsrdquo3 El-Awa proceeds to illustrate her point with reference to al-masad (Q 111) wherein the Qurrsquoan rebukes a man named ldquofather of amerdquo (abE lahab) along with this manrsquos wife The proper explana-tion of this chapter she insists is found among those medieval Muslim exegetes who explain it by describing a confrontation that Musammad had in Mecca with an uncle named Abe Lahab And yet she adds that this explanation is not obvious in the Qurrsquoan itself ldquoIf information about the historical situation is not available to interpreters the meaning of the whole sEra may be turned into an image of man and his female partner being punished in hellre for their disbeliefrdquo4

Thus El-Awa follows faithfully the manner in which the medieval exegetes use biographical material to explain the Qurrsquoan I on the other hand will argue below (see Ch 1) for the very position which she is relieved to avoid that the Sera is ldquoan image of man and his female partner being punished in hellre for their disbeliefrdquo

Accordingly the general argument in the present work is that the con-nection made by medieval Muslim exegetes between the biography of Musammad and the Qurrsquoan should not form the basis of critical scholarship Instead the Qurrsquoan should be appreciated in light of its conversation with earlier literature in particular Biblical literature ( by which I mean the Bible apocrypha and Jewish and Christian exegetical works) This argument necessarily involves an examination of both the relationship of Muslim exegetical literature to the Qurrsquoan and the relationship of the Qurrsquoan to Biblical literature Still it is the latter relationship that is of particular importance to me since ultimately I will argue that the Qurrsquoan expects its audience to be familiar with Biblical literature Whereas both Islamic tradi-tion and the tradition of critical scholarship have tended to separate Qurrsquoan and Bible the Qurrsquoan itself demands that they be kept together

3 SMS El-Awa ldquoLinguistic structurerdquo in A Rippin (ed) The Blackwell Companion to the Qur rdquoAn London Blackwell 2006 (53 ndash 72) 67

4 Ibid

1 The crisis of Qurrsaquoaacutenic Studies

The scholarly conict over the Qurrsaquoaacuten

The idea that the Qurrsquoan and Biblical literature are related is not a new one Indeed there is a long tradition of critical scholarship dedicated to the search for sources of the Qurrsquoan in earlier Jewish and Christian writings Yet for the most part the scholars who contributed to this tradition took for granted the connection made by medieval Muslim scholars between the biography of Musammad and the Qurrsquoan In their search for sources they tended to ask when where and how Musammad learned something from Biblical literature In other words these scholars generally assume that the Prophet as it were stood between the Bible and the Qurrsquoan

The link between the Qurrsquoan and the Prophetrsquos biography or sCra ( by which I mean not only works by this title but biographical information on Musammad generally) was generally taken for granted from the beginning of European scholarship of the Qurrsquoan1 The three most prominent transla-tions of the Qurrsquoan in eighteenth-century Europe all include a biographical sketch of the Prophet Musammad2 The 1833 prize-winning work of Abraham Geiger Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen includes frequent references to details of the Prophetrsquos biography3 From its beginnings

1 Regarding the dominance of this method see E Graumlf ldquoZu den christlichen Einuumlssen im Koranrdquo Al-BASith 28 Festschrift Joseph Henninger zum 70 Geburtstag 1976 (111ndash 44) 111 In a recent article N Sinai refers to this method as the ldquoauthorial paradigmrdquo See his ldquoOrientalism authorship and the onset of revelation Abraham Geiger and Theodor Noumlldeke on Musammad and the Qurrsquoanrdquo in D Hartwig W Homolka M Marx and A Neuwirth (eds) Im vollen Licht der Geschichte Die Wissenschaft des Judentums und die Anfaumlnge der kritischen Koranforschung Wuumlrzburg Ergon 2008 145 ndash 54

2 These include the Latin translation of L Marraccio ( Padua ex typographia Seminarii 1698 see 110 ndash 32) the English translation of G Sale ( London Ackers 1734 see 33 ndash 56) and the French translation of C-Eacute Savary ( Paris Knapen 1783 see 11ndash 248)

3 Thus Geiger writes ldquoWas aber die uumlbrigen Abweichungen und vorzuumlglich Hinzufuumlgungen betrifft so ruumlhren diese wiederum von der Vermischung mit seiner Zeit und Person herrdquo A Geiger Was hat Mohammed aus dem Judenthume aufgenommen Leipzig Kaufmann 1902 (1st edition Bonn Baaden 1833) 114 On Geiger see S Heschel Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesus Chicago Chicago University Press 1998 ch 2 J Lassner ldquoAbraham Geiger


in other words the method of reading the Qurrsquoan through that biography was a sine qua non of European scholarship on the Qurrsquoan

This method reached its most famous formulation in Die Geschichte des Qorans a book in three volumes which evolved over seventy years through the efforts of four different authors Theodore Noumlldeke Friedrich Schwally Gotthelf Bergstraumlsser and Otto Pretzl The earliest form of the Geschichte was a 1856 Latin essay by Noumlldeke De origine et compositione Surarum Qoranicarum ipsiusque Qorani4 Noumlldeke submitted this essay to a com-petition hosted by the Acadeacutemie des inscriptions et belles-lettres of Paris a competition that asked participants to ldquodeacuteterminer autant qursquoil est possible avec lrsquoaide des historiens arabes et des commentateurs et drsquoapregraves lrsquoexamen des morceaux [coraniques] eux-mecircmes les moments de la vie de Mahomet auxquels ils se rapportentrdquo5 In other words the competition to which Noumlldeke submitted his work involved the assumption that a critical study of the Qurrsquoan means matching individual passages (ldquomorceauxrdquo) of the Qurrsquoan with elements of the Prophetrsquos biography

Noumlldekersquos work which would become the rst volume of Geschichte des Qorans is in fact almost completely taken up by a critical arrangement of the Seras of the Qurrsquoan into four periods of the Prophetrsquos life 1st Meccan 2nd Meccan 3rd Meccan and Medinan Noumlldeke adopted the system of four periods from Gustav Weil6 but the idea that each Sera as a unity can be placed in a certain moment of the Prophetrsquos life is a tenet of Islamic religious tradition7 On the other hand this idea is in no way obvious from the text of the Qurrsquoan The text itself nowhere demands to be arranged according to the life experiences of an individual8

Yet this idea had its attraction The scholars of Noumlldekersquos era believed that the Prophetrsquos biography when read critically was a reliable source of historical information9 It therefore seemed an optimal place to begin a

A nineteenth-century Jewish reformer on the origins of Islamrdquo in M Kramer (ed) The Jewish Discovery of Islam Studies in Honor of Bernard Lewis Tel Aviv Tel Aviv University 1999 103 ndash 35

4 See GdQ1 v5 Quoted by Watt and Bell Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoan 1756 See G Weil Historisch-kritische Einleitung in den Koran Bielefeld Velhagen and Klasing

1844 Cf GdQ1 72 n 17 Thus the standard Egyptian edition of the Qurrsquoan rst published in 1924 and ubiquitous

today labels each Sera ldquoMeccanrdquo or ldquoMedinanrdquo8 Accordingly it is worth noting the observation of H-C Graf von Bothmer that in the early

Qurrsquoan manuscript fragments discovered in the Great Mosque of oanlsquoarsquo Yemen not a single Sera is identied as Meccan or Medinan See H-C Graf von Bothmer K-H Ohlig and G-R Puin ldquoNeue Wege der Koranforschungrdquo Magazin Forschung 1 1999 (33 ndash 46) 43 ndash 4

9 Already in the middle of the nineteenth century E Renan proclaimed ldquoOne can say without exaggeration that the problem of the origins of Islam has denitely now been completely resolvedrdquo E Reacutenan ldquoMahomet et les origines de lrsquoIslamismerdquo Revue des deux mondes 12 1851 1065 Reference and translation from R Hoyland ldquoWriting the biography of the Prophet Muhammad Problems and solutionsrdquo History Compass 5 2007 (581ndash 602) 582

The crisis of QurrdquoAnic Studies 5

critical study of the Qurrsquoan a text that is often not forthcoming with con-textual details Thereby scholars were able for example to explain Biblical material in the Qurrsquoan through reports in the Prophetrsquos biography that con-nect him or his followers to Jews and Christians10 In this way Aloys Sprenger argues on the basis of the reports in Islamic literature that the Prophet met a Christian monk (named Bascra) during a childhood journey to Syria that Musammad had a Christian informant11 Noumlldeke devoted an article to the refutation of Sprengerrsquos theory12 but tellingly he pursues this refutation only by pointing to other elements in the Prophetrsquos biography (such as Musammadrsquos relationship with Waraqa b Nawfal) that render superuous the search for a secret informant13 This Noumlldeke does even while he acknowledges the questionable authority of such reports admitting that ldquoder einzige unver-faumllschte durchaus zuverlaumlssige Zeuge uumlber Musammad und seine Lehre ist der Qurrsquoacircnrdquo14

Karl Ahrens exhibits a similar method in his inuential article ldquoChristliches im Qoranrdquo15 He argues that the Qurrsquoan was inuenced more by Christianity than Judaism with reference to a report in Islamic literature namely that Musammadrsquos followers were distraught to hear of a defeat the Christian Byzantines had suffered at the hands of the Persians Yet this report is evi-dently a story designed to give a context to al-rEm (30) 2 ndash 4a (ldquoThe Byzantines

10 See for example the comments of J Obermann ldquoThe situation becomes clear once we recognize that Muhammad had acquired his entire store of knowledge about Scripture and about Judaism and Christianity in general through oral channels and personal observation during a long period of association with the People of the Book His was the case of a pagan converted to monotheism who absorbed its theory and practice by attending services and pious assemblies of worshipers by listening at the feet of popular preachers and missionaries but who never read a line of Scripture or a breviary or even of a hymnbookrdquo J Obermann ldquoIslamic origins A study in background and foundationrdquo in J Friedlander (ed) The Arab Heritage New York Russell and Russell 1963 (58 ndash120) 95

11 A Sprenger ldquoMohammadrsquos journey to Syria and Professor [FL] Fleischerrsquos opinion thereonrdquo Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 21 1852 576 ndash 92 cf idem Das Leben und die Lehre des MoSammad Berlin Nicolairsquosche Verlagsbuchandlung 1861ndash 5 2348 ndash 90

12 NoumlldekeldquoHatte Musammad christliche Lehrerrdquo ZDMG 12 1858 699 ndash 708 He opens by noting ( p 700) ldquoNun hat sich aber in neuster Zeit Sprenger zur Aufgabe gemacht seine Ansicht dass Musammad nicht der Stifter des Islacircms sondern ndash denn darauf laumluft doch seine Beweisfuumlhrung hinaus ndash ein unbedeutendes halb betrogenes halb betruumlgendes Werkzeug Anderer gewesen seirdquo

13 Noumlldeke returns to this refutation in the Geschichte commenting ldquoWenn in den Legenden welche Muhammed mit einem syrischen Moumlnche Bahira oder Nestorios Verbindung bringen auch ein wahrer Kern steckt so kann doch eine solche Begegnung kaum eine ausschlagge-bende Bedeutung fuumlr seine Prophetie gehabt haben Und mag Muhammed noch so oft nach Syrien gekommen sein ndash Hunderte seiner Landsleute machten ja jahraus jahrein diese Reise um die Offenbarungsreligionen kennen zu lernen brauchte weder ein heidnischer Mekkaner nach Syrien oder Abessinien noch ein syrischer oder abessinischer Christ nach Mekka zu kommenrdquo GdQ1 17 ndash18

14 Noumlldeke ldquoHatte Musammad christliche Lehrerrdquo 70015 K Ahrens ldquoChristliches im Qoranrdquo ZDMG 84 1930 15 ndash 68 148 ndash 90


have been defeated in a nearer land After their defeat they will inict defeat in a number of yearsrdquo)16 In other words the Qurrsquoan seems to explain the story not vice versa

The link between the Qurrsquoan and the Prophetrsquos biography also led scholars condent that they knew the time and place in which the Qurrsquoan was written to search outside of the Islamic canon for Jewish and Christian groups that might have inuenced the Qurrsquoan17 Wilhelm Rudolph for example dedicates the rst chapter of his Die Abhaumlngigkeit des Qorans von Judentum und Christentum (1922) not to anything in the Qurrsquoan but rather to the nature

16 Wansbrough nds the logic of this explanation particularly wanting ldquoThe primary motif a natural alliance between Musammadrsquos followers and the Byzantines ( both being lsquopeople of the bookrsquo) against his opponents and the Persians ( both being idolaters) became a constant in Quranic exegesis and a lsquofactrsquo of oriental history The circular argumentation underlying that process is graphically illustrated by the manner in which Ahrens drew upon Wellhausenrsquos assertion (itself apparently an inference from the haggadic interpretation of Q 301ndash 4) that the Jews in Arabia ( hence opponents of Musammad ) had traditionally () sided with Persia against Byzantium to prove conversely that Islam was inuenced in its development by the prophetrsquos sympathetic attitude to Christianityrdquo QS 144 ndash 5 See Ahrens ldquoChristliches im Qoranrdquo 148 J Wellhausen Reste arabischen Heidentums Berlin Reimer 1897 236 I personally heard this motif expressed in dramatic fashion by Irfan Shahid who in a lecture I attended at the American University of Beirut in Spring 2001 proposed that Arab Christian and Muslim scholars unite against secular scholars in the West as Christians and Muslims united in the days of the Prophet to combat the ldquore-worshippingrdquo Zoroastrians

17 On the inuence of Jewish groups see especially R Dozy Die Israeliten zu Mekka von Davids Zeit Leipzig Engelmann 1864 AJ Wensinck Mohammed en de Joden te Medina Leiden Brill 1908 English trans Muhammad and the Jews of Medina trans W Behn Freiburg Schwarz 1975 R Leszynsky Die Juden in Arabien zur Zeit Mohammeds Berlin Mayer and Muumlller 1910 DS Margoliouth The Relations between Arabs and Israelites Prior to the Rise of Islam London Oxford University Press 1924 H Hirschberg Judische und christliche Lehren im vor-und fruumlhislamischen Arabien Krakow Nakl Polskiej Akademii Umiejetnosci 1939 On the inuence of Christian groups see especially L Cheikho al-Na2rAniyya wa-adabuhA bayna ldquoarab al-JAhiliyya Beirut Dar al-Machreq 1912 ndash 23 French trans Le christianisme et la litteacuterature chreacutetienne en Arabie avant lrsquoIslam Beirut Imprimerie Catholique 1923 H Lammens La Mecque agrave la veille de lrsquoHeacutegire Beirut Imprimerie Catholique 1924 idem Les sanctuaires preacuteislamites dans lrsquoArabie occidentale Beirut Imprimerie Catholique 1926 idem LrsquoArabie occidentale avant lrsquoheacutegire Beirut Imprimerie Catholique 1928 R Bell The Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment London Macmillan 1926 F Nau Les arabes chreacutetiens de Meacutesopotamie et Syrie du VIIe au VIIIe siegravecle Paris Imprimerie Nationale 1933 H Charles Le christianisme des arabes nomades sur le limes et dans le deacutesert syro-meacutesopotamien aux alentours de lrsquoheacutegire Paris Leroux 1936 JS Trimingham Christianity among the Arabs in Pre-Islamic Times London Longman 1979 E Rabbath Lrsquoorient chreacutetien agrave la veille de lrsquoislam Beirut Universiteacute Libanaise 1980 R Tardy Najracircn Chreacutetiens drsquoArabie avant lrsquoislam Beirut Dar al-Machreq 1999 I Shahid Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fourth Century Washington DC Dumbarton Oaks 1984 (and subsequently Byzantium and the Arabs in the Fifth Century 1989 in the Sixth Century 1995) idem Byzantium and the Arabs Late Antiquity Bruxelles Byzantion 2005 ndash 6


of Judaism and Christianity in pre-Islamic Arabia18 Scholars frequently looked to Musammadrsquos Arabian context to explain the idiosyncratic nature of Biblical material in the Qurrsquoan The Arabian desert they often assumed must have been a sort of refuge for heretics and heterodoxy Thus the anonymous English translator of Gustav Weilrsquos nineteenth-century work Biblischen Legenden der Muselmaumlnner explains

Many heresies respecting the Trinity and the Savior the worship of saints and images errors on the future state of the soul etc had so completely overrun the nominal church of that country that it is difcult to say whether one particle of truth was left in it More especially the worship of Mary as the mother of God whom the Marianites [] con-sidered as a divinity and to whom the Collyridians even offered a stated sacrice was in general practice round Mohammed and it is as curious as it is sad to observe how this idolatry affected him19

Other scholars more restrained in their judgment often came to the con-clusion that Musammad was inuenced by some sort of Jewish Christianity Sprenger among others proposed this idea in the nineteenth century20 Rudolph Hans-Joachim Schoeps Shlomo Goitein and Yesuf Durra al- 7addad did so in the twentieth century21 and a number of contemporary

18 W Rudolph Die Abhaumlngigkeit des Qorans von Judentum und Christentum Stuttgart Kohlhammer 1922 The second chapter is dedicated to the question ldquoWie ist die Uumlbernahme juumldischer und christlicher Stoffe durch Muhammed zu denkenrdquo

19 G Weil The Bible the Koran and the Talmud or Biblical Legends of the Musselmans New York Harper 1846 256 Weil himself was a Jew and presumably would not have thought of pre-Islamic Christianity in this manner

20 Sprenger bases this conclusion in part on the traditions which relate that Zayd b Thabit learned Hebrew He therefore argues that Arab Christians in Musammadrsquos day had trans-lated the Bible into Judaeo-Arabic Leben 1131 Similar ideas are proposed in Wellhausen Reste arabischen Heidentums (see esp p 205) and in the work of the Protestant missionary S Zwemer The Moslem Christ ( New York American Tract Society 1912) Cf the conclu-sion of Noumlldeke (GdQ1 8) that Islam is ldquoeine wesentlich in den Spuren des Christentums gehende Religionsstiftungrdquo

21 Rudolph writes that the particular form of Christianity that inuenced the Qurrsquoan ldquowie uumlberhaupt alle orientalischen Christensekten einen starken juumldischen Einschlag hatte deshalb kann vieles im Qoran stehen was auf den ersten Blick als zweifellos juumldisch erscheint und doch aus christlicher Quelle geossen sein kannrdquo (Abhaumlngigkeit p 27) Elsewhere ( p 51) Rudolph points to the fact that the Qurrsquoan has essentially nothing to say about the apostles which he interprets as a reection of Ebionite ecclesiology Schoeps includes Islam in his larger survey of Jewish Christianity Theologie und Geschichte des Judenchristentums Tuumlbingen Mohr 1949 (see pp 334 ndash 43) SD Goitein describes the sect that inuenced Musammad from the opposite direction They were not Jewish Christians but rather Jews heavily inuenced by Christianity See SD Goitein Jews and Arabs New York Schocken 1955 7addad builds his argument on an analysis of the Qurrsquoanrsquos use of the term Na1ara and reports of Nazarene sects in early Christian heresiographies See Yesuf Durra al-7addad Al-Inj Cl f C-l-Qur rdquoAn Jounieh Librairie pauliste 1982 idem Al-Qur rdquoAn daldquowA na2rAniyya Jounieh Librairie pauliste 1969


scholars including Joseph Azzi Franccedilois de Blois Eacutedouard Gallez and Joachim Gnilka continue to hold to it in different forms today22 Still others looked to Manicheanism23 or the Qumran community24 Tor Andrae for his part concluded that Musammad was inuenced by Nestorian (ie East Syrian) Christianity which he asserts had become prominent in the southern Arabian peninsula due to the Persian triumph over the ( Jacobite mono-physite) Ethiopians there25 More recently Guumlnter Luumlling has argued that the Qurrsquoan developed from the hymnal of a Christian sect that rejected both the Trinity and the divinity of Christ ( holding him instead to be an angel of the divine council) a sect that had ed from Byzantine oppression to Mecca26 If these works reach wide-ranging and contradictory conclusions they have one thing in common They all work from the basic premise inherited from Islamic tradition and enshrined by the work of Noumlldeke that the Qurrsquoan is to be understood in light of the biography Musammad27

22 See Abe Mesa al-7arcrc NabCy al-raSma Beirut Diyar lsquoAql 1990 idem Qass wa-nabCy Beirut np 1979 French trans J Azzi Le precirctre et le prophegravete trans MS Garnier Paris Maisonneuve et Larose 2001 F de Blois ldquoNa2rAnC and SanCf Studies on the religious vocabulary of Christianity and Islamrdquo BSOAS 65 2002 1ndash 30 Eacute Gallez Le messie et son prophegravete Aux origines de lrsquoislam Versailles Eacuteditions de Paris 2005 J Gnilka Die Nazarener und der Koran Eine Spurensuche Freiburg Herder 2007 See also A Yousef Le moine de Mahomet Lrsquoentourage judeacuteo-chreacutetien agrave La Mecque au VIe siegravecle Monaco Rocher 2008

23 See C Clemens ldquoMuhammeds Abhaumlngigkeit von der Gnosisrdquo Harnack-Ehrung Leipzig Hinrichs 1921 249 ndash 62 and more recently M Gil ldquoThe creed of Abe lsquofmirrdquo Israel Oriental Studies 12 1992 9 ndash 47 F de Blois ldquoElchasai ndash Manes ndash Muhammad Manichaumlismus und Islam in religionshistorischen Vergleichrdquo Der Islam 81 2004 31ndash 48 cf M Sfar Le Coran la Bible et lrsquoorient ancien Paris Sfar 1998 esp 409 ndash 25

24 See C Rabin ldquoIslam and the Qumran Sectrdquo in C Rabin (ed) Qumran Studies London Oxford University Press 1957 112 ndash 30 Rabin writes ( p 128) ldquoTo sum up there can be little doubt that Muhammad had Jewish contacts before coming to Medina it is highly probable that they were heretical anti-rabbinic Jews and a number of terminological and ideological details suggest the Qumran sectrdquo

25 Andrae (OIC 16) shows that the liturgical language of Yemeni Christians at the time of Islamic origins was Syriac Elsewhere (OIC 29 ndash 31) he argues (in less convincing fashion) that Musammad originally supported Nestorian Persian Christianity due to an anti- Ethiopian sentiment among the Arabs (a sentiment Andrae proposes was connected to Abraharsquos campaign against Mecca)

26 See G Luumlling Uumlber den Ur-Qur rdquoAn Ansaumltze zur Rekonstruktion vorislamischer christlicher Strophenlieder im Qur rdquoAn Erlangen Luumlling 1974 translated and expanded as A Challenge to Islam for Reformation Delhi Molital Banarsidass 2003 idem Der christliche Kult an der vorislamischen Kaaba Erlangen Luumlling 1977 idem Die Wiederentdeckung des Propheten MuSammad eine Kritik am ldquochristlichenrdquo Abendland Erlangen Luumlling 1981 idem ldquoA new paradigm for the rise of Islam and its consequences for a new paradigm of the history of Israelrdquo Journal of Higher Criticism 7 Spring 2000 23 ndash 53 Irfan Shahid on the other hand argues that orthodox Chalcedonian Christianity was widespread among the Arabs by the rise of Islam For example I Shahid The Martyrs of Najracircn New Documents Subsidia Hagiographica 49 Bruxelles Socieacuteteacute des Bollandistes 1971 cf idem Byzantium and the Arabs

27 Tellingly this premise can be found in works by scholars who otherwise disagree entirely It is evident for example in the polemical work of the Christian missionary W St Clair


This premise is no less central to works which per se are dedicated not to history but to philological studies of the Qurrsquoan such as the sober and scholarly works of Josef Horovitz Koranische Untersuchungen (1926) and Heinrich Speyer (a student of Horovitz in Frankfurt) Die biblischen Erzaumlhlungen im Qoran (1931) Horovitz introduces the reader to Qurrsquoanic narratives not according to their appearance in the Qurrsquoan or their interior chronology (ie Adam before Noah before Abraham) but rather accord-ing to the supposed moment in Musammadrsquos life when he proclaimed them28 Speyer in this same vein indicates one of Noumlldekersquos four periods (1st Meccan 2nd Meccan 3rd Meccan Medinan) every time he mentions a Qurrsquoanic verse

Meanwhile the method of reading the Qurrsquoan through the Prophetrsquos bio-graphy was questioned by a handful of scholars In an article written fty years after the rst volume of Geschichte des QorAns the Belgian scholar Henri Lammens argues that the biography of Musammad is not something that the Islamic community remembered but rather something that Muslim exegetes developed in order to explain the Qurrsquoan29 The sCra is itself a prod-uct of exegesis (tafsCr) of the Qurrsquoan and therefore it can hardly be used to explain the Qurrsquoan30

Tisdall who nds in the division of the Qurrsquoan between Meccan and Medinan passages evidence for the corruption of Musammadrsquos character ldquoThe Qurrsquoan is a faithful mirror of the life and character of its author It breathes the air of the desert it enables us to hear the battle-cries of the Prophetrsquos followers as they rushed to the onset it reveals the working of Muhammadrsquos own mind and shows the gradual declension of his character as he passed from the earnest and sincere though visionary enthusiast into the conscious impostor and open sensualistrdquo W St Clair Tisdall The Original Sources of the Qur rdquoan London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 1905 27 It is no less evident in the apologetical work of the Muslim modernist MH Haykal who comments ldquoI discovered that the most reliable source of information for the biography of Muhammad is the Holy Qurrsquoan It contains a reference to every event in the life of the Arab Prophet which can serve the investigator as a standard norm and as a guiding light in his analysis of the reports of the various bio-graphies and of the Sunnahrdquo MH Haykal The Life of MuSammad trans IRA al-Fareqc np North American Trust 1976 lindashlii

28 On Horovitz see G Jaumlger ldquoEin juumldischer Islamwissenschaftler an der Universitaumlt Frankfurt und der Hebrew University of Jerusalemrdquo in Hartwig et al (eds) Im vollen Licht der Geschichte 117 ndash 30

29 H Lammens ldquoQoran et tradition Comment fut composeacute la vie de Mahometrdquo Recherches de Science Religieuse 1 (1910) 25 ndash 51 English trans ldquoThe Koran and tradition How the life of Muhammad was composedrdquo in Ibn Warraq (ed) The Quest for the Historical Muhammad Amherst NY Prometheus 2000 (169 ndash 87) 181 See also Lammensrsquo work on the material in Islamic tradition regarding the age of the Prophet ldquoLrsquoAge de Mahomet et la chronologie de la sCrardquo Journal Asiatique 17 1911 209 ndash 50 English trans ldquoThe age of Muhammad and the chronology of the sirardquo in Ibn Warraq (ed) Quest for the Historical Muhammad 188 ndash 217 cf CH Becker ldquoPrinzipielles zu Lammensrsquo Sirastudienrdquo Der Islam 4 1913 263 ndash 9

30 Lammens ldquoThe Koran and traditionrdquo 179 Describing the sCra Lammens writes elsewhere ldquoAutour du noyau fourni par lrsquointerpreacutetation du Qoran sont venues se superposer des couches inconsistantes amas bizarre drsquoapports chreacutetiens et judaiumlques amalgameacute avec le


One of the few scholars to appreciate this insight was Reacutegis Blachegravere In his Introduction au Coran Blachegravere rejects the fundamental precept of the rst volume of Die Geschichte des QorAns

Il nrsquoapparaicirct pas inutile de rappeler les principes qui apregraves Noumlldeke et Schwally semblent devoir inspirer deacutesormais un regroupement accept-able des textes coraniques

En premier lieu il faut renoncer pour toujours agrave lrsquoideacutee drsquoun reclasse-ment des sourates qui collerait agrave la biographie de Mahomet fondeacutee uniquement sur la Tradition Seul le Coran pourrait ecirctre un guide sucircr Puisque ni la biographie de Mahomet telle que lrsquoont imagineacutee les auteurs musulmans ni celle qursquoont tenteacute drsquoeacutetablir les historiens occiden-taux ne fournit une base sucircre ou assez deacutetailleacutee pour un regroupement chronologique des textes de la Vulgate31

Thus Blachegravere objects to the manner in which Noumlldeke established a chro-nology of the Qurrsquoan that is on the basis of reports in Islamic tradition Yet he does not object to the idea of a chronology per se (indeed in the rst version of his translation of the Qurrsquoan the Seras are arranged according to a chronology) He simply argues that it must be achieved solely on a literary basis that is independently from tafsCr and sCra This of course is prob-lematic inasmuch as the Qurrsquoan itself provides little evidence for the Prophetrsquos life32

In a similar fashion the English scholar Richard Bell and thereafter his student Watt proposed a modication but not a rejection of Noumlldekersquos method33 Bell leaves no doubt that the Qurrsquoan should be read in the light of the Prophetrsquos biography34 He begins his study of the Qurrsquoan with a

theacuteories dynastico-politiques avec les recircveries theacuteocratiques les opinions des eacutecoles de theacuteologie et de droit avec les tendances de cercles asceacutetiques et les aspirations de sousmerdquo H Lammens FAVima et les frac14lles de Mahomet Rome Sumptibus ponticii instituti biblici 1912 139 ndash 40

31 Blachegravere Introduction au Coran 2nd edition Paris Maisonneuve 1959 (1st edition 1947) 252 ndash 3 Cf R Blachegravere Le problegraveme de Mahomet Paris Presses universitaires de France 1952

32 Thus R Hoyland relates ldquoReacutegis Blachegravere tried to circumvent the problem by using the Qurrsquoan as his starting point This text is generally considered to issue from Muhammad himself and in which case it is the key to his thought But even if this is granted it does not help us very much for the Qurrsquoan makes scant reference to the historical environment in which it aroserdquo R Hoyland ldquoWriting the biography of the Prophet Muhammad Problems and solutionsrdquo History Compass 5 2007 (581ndash 602) 584

33 R Bell Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 1963 Watt and Bell Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn The latter work is Wattrsquos revision and commentary of the former work Cf WM Watt ldquoThe dating of the Qurrsquoan A review of Richard Bellrsquos Theoriesrdquo JRAS 1957 46 ndash 56

34 Thus A Rippin accurately notes ldquoAt this point it is worth noting that the highly praised work of Richard Bell although supposedly using the biblical methodology consequent on


presentation of the historical context of pre-Islamic Arabia and historical reports of Musammadrsquos life35 Regarding the chronological order of the Qurrsquoan Bell criticizes Noumlldekersquos conviction that Seras in their entirety can be placed into certain periods in the Prophetrsquos biography36 and notes like Lammens the place of ( haggadic) exegesis in shaping that biography

But in the great bulk of the Qurrsquoan there is either no reference to his-torical events or the events and circumstances to which reference is made are not otherwise known In regard to such passages there are often differing traditions and as often as not the stories related to explain them turn out when critically examined to be imagined from the pas-sages themselves There is in effect no reliable tradition as to the historical order of the Qurrsquoan37

In his revision of Bellrsquos views Watt notably edits this point arguing that such traditions should nevertheless be seen as the fundamental basis for understanding the Qurrsquoan After acknowledging the objections of Bell Watt continues

Despite these deciencies the traditional dating of passages by Muslim scholars is by no means valueless and indeed forms the basis of all future work In so far as it is consistent it gives a rough idea of the chronology of the Qurrsquoan and any modern attempt to nd a basis for dating must by and large be in agreement with the traditional views even if in one or two points it contradicts them38

The contrast between Bell and his student on this point is signicant inasmuch as later scholars largely follow Watt The great exception to this

the Documentary Hypothesis has in fact progressed not one iota beyond implicit notions in the traditional accounts of the revelation and the collection of the Qurrsquoan he took the ideas of serial revelation and the collection after the death of Musammad (the common notions accepted by most Western students of the Qurrsquoan) and applied them literally to the text of the Qurrsquoan However the primary purpose of employing modern biblical meth-odologies must be to free oneself from age-old presuppositions and to apply new ones This Bell did not do in fact he worked wholly within the presuppositions of the Islamic traditionrdquo A Rippin ldquoLiterary analysis of Qurrsquoan tafsCr and sCra The methodologies of John Wansbroughrdquo in RC Martin (ed) Approaches to Islam in Religious Studies Tucson University of Arizona Press 1985 (151ndash 63) 156 reprint The Qur rdquoAn and Its Interpretive Tradition ed A Rippin Aldershot Ashgate 2001

35 Bell Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn 1ndash 36 Watt and Bell Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn 1ndash 39 In the Origin of Islam in Its Christian Environment Bell argues that the fundamental dynamic in the Qurrsquoan is Musammadrsquos gradual discovery of Jewish and Christian teachings during his career Bell Origin 68ndash9

36 Regarding which see A Rippin ldquoReading the Qurrsquoan with Richard Bellrdquo JAOS 112 1992 (639 ndash 47) 643

37 Bell Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn 10038 Watt and Bell Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoAn 109


trend is John Wansbrough39 who argues trenchantly in Qur rdquoAnic Studies that the stories which exegetes tell to explain the Qurrsquoan are not historical records but rather the literary product of a community developing a salvation history in an environment charged with sectarian rivalry The stories that involve Musammad no less than the stories that involve Abraham Moses or Jesus are literary not historical40

Now most critical scholars acknowledge that story-telling is a salient ele-ment in classical Qurrsquoanic exegesis For Wansbrough however this acknow-ledgment leads to fundamentally different conclusions about the Qurrsquoanic text First the idea of a chronology of the Qurrsquoan according to Musammadrsquos life is by his reading spurious since the stories that would link a certain passage of the Qurrsquoan to a certain moment in that life have no historical authority Second and even more far-reaching tafsCr literature in general even when it is read with a critical method cannot provide the scholar with privileged information on what the Qurrsquoan originally meant41 Instead

39 The literary approach of Toshihiko Izutsu followed more recently by Daniel Madigan might also be considered an exception to the trend Izutsu concerns himself only with an analysis of the language and semantics of the Qurrsquoan setting aside the question of its rela-tionship with the sCra for the sake of his method In this however Izutsu provides no fundamental challenge to the dominant method of reading the Qurrsquoan through sCra but rather frames his work as an alternative ndash but not contradictory ndash approach to the Qurrsquoanic text See T Izutsu The Structure of Ethical Terms in the Koran A Study in Semantics Tokyo Keio 1959 idem God and Man in the Koran Semantics of the Koranic Weltanschauung Tokyo Keio 1964 D Madigan The Qur rdquoAnrsquos Self-Image Writing and Authority in Islamrsquos Scripture Princeton Princeton University Press 2001

40 In this same line Patricia Crone argues that the fundamental process in the development of tafsCr is not remembering but story-telling ldquoClassical exegetes such as pabarc may omit the story having developed hermeneutical interests of a more sophisticated kind but even when they do so the story underlies the interpretation advanced It is clear then that much of the classical Muslim understanding of the Qurrsquoan rests on the work of popular story tellers such story tellers being the rst to propose particular historical contexts for particular versesrdquo P Crone Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam Princeton Princeton University Press 1987 216 To this argument Uri Rubin responds that the exegetical elements of the sCra are secondary efforts to connect earlier stories about the Prophet to the material in the Qurrsquoan See U Rubin The Eye of the Beholder Princeton Darwin 1995 esp pp 226 ndash 33 Similar is the approach of M Schoumlller Exegetisches Denken und Prophetenbiographie Eine quellenkritische Analyse der S Cra-Uumlberlieferung zu MuSammads Konfrac12ikt mit den Juden Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1998 It is also worth noting that Watt himself wrote a short work in response to Wansbrough and Crone intended to show that the evidence in the Qurrsquoan itself veries the basic outline of the sCra See his MuSammadrsquos Mecca History in the Quran Edinburgh Edinburgh University Press 1988

41 Noting the argument of Joseph Schacht that legal traditions attributed to Musammad are in fact the products of medieval Muslim scholars Wansbrough comments ldquoIt seems at least doubtful whether for exegetical (tafsCr) traditions a different origin can be claimedrdquo QS 179 Schacht himself makes this point forcefully in ldquoA revaluation of Islamic traditionsrdquo JRAS 1949 142 ndash 54 reprint Quest for the Historical Muhammad ed Ibn Warraq 358 ndash 67


tafsCr literature is a remarkably successful intellectual enterprise to develop original and distinctive religious traditions in the face of competition from (above all) Jews and Christians It is this second conclusion that is particularly important for the present work I will argue that the Qurrsquoan ndash from a critical perspective at least ndash should not be read in conversation with what came after it (tafsCr) but with what came before it ( Biblical literature)

In other respects however this work diverges from Wansbroughrsquos theories Wansbrough doubts that the Qurrsquoan had a unitary form before the lsquoAbbasid period (instead of an Ur-text of the Qurrsquoan he imagines that various ldquopro-phetical logoi rdquo rst came together as a book in this period ) In the present work on the other hand I have no concern for this question Instead my concern is how the canonical text of the Qurrsquoan might best be read

The answer to that question offered by the present work confrac12icts with the dominant scholarly method today With some exceptions42 scholars in the eld today continue to explain the Qurrsquoan by means of a critical reading of tafsCr By dividing the Qurrsquoan according to Musammadrsquos life they hope to nd a historical context that will illuminate the passage at hand By sorting through the traditions in tafsCr they hope to spot a valid tradition that preserves ancient material This approach to the text as Wansbrough points out is essentially that of medieval Muslim scholars43

In this regard the example of Angelika Neuwirth a student of Anton Spitaler (the student of Bergstraumlsser and Pretzl in Munich) is particularly

42 Notably G Hawting in various publications including The Idea of Idolatry and the Emergence of Islam Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1999 ldquoQurrsquoanic exegesis and historyrdquo in JD McAuliffe B Walsh and J Goering (eds) With Reverence for the Word Medieval Scriptural Exegesis in Judaism Christianity and Islam Oxford Oxford University Press 2003 408 ndash 21 see also the article by J Chabbi ldquoHistoire et tradition sacreacutee la biographie impossible de Mahometrdquo Arabica 43 1996 189 ndash 205 Particularly noteworthy are the remarks of Fred Donner in his opening essay in the recent Cambridge Companion to the Qur rdquoAn ldquoTaken together these two facts ndash that the Qurrsquoan text crystallised at an early date and that the sCra reports are sometimes exegetical ndash suggest that we must consider the relation-ship of the Qurrsquoan to its context in a manner that reverses the procedure normally adopted when studying the relationship of a text to its context Rather than relying on the sCra reports about a presumed historical context to illuminate the meaning of the Qurrsquoan text we must attempt to infer from the Qurrsquoanic text what its true historical context might have been and in this way check on the historicity of the various reports in the sCrardquo F Donner ldquoThe historical contextrdquo in JD McAuliffe (ed) The Cambridge Companion to the Qur rdquoAn Cambridge Cambridge University Press 2007 (23 ndash 39) 34

43 On Noumlldeke Wansbrough comments ldquoHis historical evaluation of traditional data did not bring him much beyond the position established and occupied by Seyevc 400 years earlierrdquo To this he adds ldquoModications of Noumlldeke-Schwally by Bell and Blachegravere respectively exhibit renement of detail but no critical assessment of the principle involved namely whether a chronology topology of revelation is even feasiblerdquo QS 126


illuminating Neuwirth argues that the Qurrsquoan should be studied for its literary forms and its internal indications of a community of believers not on the basis of tafsCr44 Despite this Neuwirth bases her work on the traditional division of the Qurrsquoan into Meccan and Medinan periods of Musammadrsquos life45 Neuwirth like Blachegravere looks for evidence of a chronolog-ical development within the text46 In practice however her division of Seras between Meccan and Medinan is essentially that proposed by Noumlldeke in the middle of the nineteenth century Indeed in a recent publication Prof Neuwirth laments that more scholars have not returned to Noumlldekersquos chronology which she names the ldquofoundation for any historical Qurrsquoan researchrdquo47

44 See eg A Neuwirth ldquoQurrsquoanic literary structure revisitedrdquo in S Leder (ed) Story-Telling in the Framework of Non-Fictional Arabic Literature Wiesbaden Harrassowitz 1998 388 ndash 420 eadem ldquoQurrsquoan and historyndasha disputed relationship Some reections on Qurrsquoanic history and history in the Qurrsquoanrdquo Journal of Qur rdquoanic Studies 5 2003 1ndash18

45 Notice the title of her rst book Studien zur Komposition der mekkanischen Suren Berlin de Gruyter 1981 (2nd edition 2007) See more recently her ldquoStructural linguistic and liter-ary featuresrdquo in McAuliffe (ed) Cambridge Companion to the Qur rdquoAn 97 ndash113 More recently Neuwirth has begun a major project to establish a critical edition of the Qurrsquoan with the evidence of manuscripts a project once imagined by none other than Bergstraumlsser and Pretzl (along with the Australian Arthur Jeffery) I understand that the critical edition will be produced according to a supposed chronology of the Qurrsquoan ie ldquoMeccanrdquo Seras will be produced rst The project has been announced as Corpus Coranicum Edition und Kommentar des Korans (the name corpus coranicum coming from Pretzlrsquos description of the initial pro-ject see O Pretzl Die Fortfuumlhrung des Apparatus Criticus zum Koran Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1934 (Heft 5) Munich Verlag der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften 1934 12) For more details on the project and the proposed format of the online text see M Marx ldquoEin Koran-Forschungsprojekt in der Tradition der Wissenschaft des Judentums Zur Programmatik des Akademienvorhabens Corpus Coranicumrdquo in Hartwig et al (eds) Im vollen Licht der Geschichte 41ndash 53 and http wwwgeschkultfu-berlinde e semiarab arabistik projekte indexhtml This project was in part the focus of a front page Wall Street Journal article A Higgins ldquoThe Lost Archiverdquo Wall Street Journal January 12 2008 A1

46 She argues that Meccan Seras are distinguished by liturgical concerns while Medinan Seras are distinguished by political and social concerns along with the rejection of Judaism for a Meccan Abrahamic cult ldquoDie Neureexion des Koran als Diskursabfolge hat gegenuumlber der klassischen Periodisierung den Vorteil dass sie nicht auf einer linearen Vorstellung von einem Informationszuwachs der einen Figur des Propheten und einer stilistischen Ent-wicklung der Texte aufbaut sondern die Uumlbermittler-Houmlrer-Kommunikation in ihrer Bedeutung erkennt und den Koran als einen Kommunikationsprozess zu beschreiben unternimmtrdquo Neuwirth ldquoZur Archaumlologie einer Heiligen Schrift Uumlberlegungen zum Koran vor seiner Kompilationrdquo in C Burgmer (ed) Streit um den Koran Berlin Schiler 2004 (82 ndash 97) 97

47 ldquoThat not only critical analysis of previously formulated positions was abandoned but also that even the foundation for any historical Qurrsquoan research was relinquished namely the chronology of the suras elaborated by Noumlldeke has to be seen retrospectively as a perilous regressionrdquo ldquoIm vollen Licht der Geschichte Die Wissenschaft des Judentums und die Anfaumlnge der kritischen Koranforschungrdquo in Hartwig et al (eds) Im vollen Licht der Geschichte (25 ndash 39) 34 (quotation from English trans p 19)


The dominance of this perspective on the Qurrsquoan is particularly salient in the work of Karen Armstrong One of the most popular authors on Islam48 Armstrong is often portrayed as a leading authority in the eld49 even if she knows little if any Arabic (as suggested by the transliteration of Qurrsquoan as Qursquoran throughout [the second edition of] her work on Musammad ) Yet precisely because of this her work is an interesting case study since it is entirely dependent on secondary sources in the eld It is noteworthy then that Armstrong accepts apparently without questioning the traditional notion of connecting individual passages with Musammadrsquos biography Regarding al-RuSA (93) for example she writes

We know very little about Musammadrsquos early life The Qursquoran [sic] gives us the most authoritative account of his experience before he received his prophetic vocation when he was forty years old ldquoDid he not nd thee an orphan and shelter thee Did he not nd thee erring and guide thee Did he not nd thee needy and sufce thee [Q 936 ndash 9 Arberry]rdquo50

In fact the Qurrsquoan never identies the speaker or the intended audience of these questions According to Islamic tradition however God is here speaking to Musammad But certainly these verses could be something else altogether such as the Qurrsquoanrsquos exhortation to believers generally to be charitable to orphans (ldquoTherefore do not oppress the orphanrdquo Q 9310) and to the needy (ldquoand do not reject the needyrdquo Q 9311) In fact it might be argued that the powerful moral argument of this Sera that mercy should be shown because God is merciful is nullied when the reader imagines that the Qurrsquoan intends only Musammad here

Armstrong explains al-masad (111) in a similar fashion

Abu Lahabrsquos wife who fancied herself as a poet liked to shout insulting verses at the Prophet when he passed by On one occasion she hurled an armful of prickly rewood in his path It was probably at this time that Sera 111 was revealed ldquoPerish the hands of Abu Lahab and per-ish he His wealth avails him not neither what he has earned he shall roast at a aming re and his wife the carrier of the rewood upon her neck a rope of palm bre [Arberryrsquos translation]rdquo51

48 On July 5 2007 Karen Armstrongrsquos Muhammad A Biography of the Prophet (2nd edition London Phoenix 2001 (1st edition 1993)) was ranked 8481 of all books at amazoncom

49 She was for example one of the few scholars called on to provide the basic commentary for the monumental Public Broadcasting ( USA) special on Musammad broadcast on Sept 25 2002

50 Armstrong MuSammad 7251 Ibid 130


Read by itself al-masad hardly supports Armstrongrsquos explanation The Qurrsquoan never identies Abe Lahab ldquoFather of Flamerdquo as a historical frac14gure The phrase might in fact be an allusion to anyone who is doomed to hell (regarding which see Ch 2 CS 13)52 Similarly the reference to his wife as a carrier of rewood ( SaVab) seems to be a rather artful play on the theme of damnation The rich sinful woman will not carry her wealth to the afterlife (Q 1112) but rather be dragged (Q 1115) by her neck as she carries instead rewood that will light the ames of her own punishment (Q 1114) Nevertheless in tafsCr this passage is explained through the introduction of a historical gure named Abe Lahab a relative of and ultimately an antagonist to the Prophet His antagonism is encouraged by a spiteful wife who is reported to have harassed Musammad by throwing rewood in his path Armstrong adds the detail that the rewood was prickly53

With Armstrong the reader has the sense that she has chosen the model of reading the Qurrsquoan through tafsCr without any serious reection With a second inuential scholar Muhammad Abdel Haleem the results are the same but the tone is quite different Abdel Haleem is professor of Qurrsquoanic Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London and founder of the Journal of Qur rdquoAnic Studies His book Understanding the Qur rdquoAn has become a standard resource for undergraduate instruction on the Qurrsquoan54 Therein it appears that Abdel Haleem like Armstrong inevitably views the Qurrsquoan through the lens of tafsCr

This is seen for example in his commentary on al-baqara (2223a) which reads ldquoYour women are your eld Go into your eld as you wishrdquo Abdel Haleem explains ldquoWhen the Muslims migrated from Mecca the men found the women of Medina bashful and only willing to sleep with their husbands lying on their side So the Muslim men asked the Prophet if there was any-thing wrong with such sexual positionsrdquo55 It perhaps goes without saying there is nothing in the Qurrsquoanic verses that connects this verse to the bashful-ness or the sexual habits of the women in Medina56

52 On this point cf KU 78 8853 Almost all of Armstrongrsquos work reects this method For example she explains Q 961ndash 5

with the story of Musammad and Mt 7irarsquo ( p 83) Q 741ndash 5 with the story of Musammad being wrapped up in a blanket after the rst revelation ( pp 84 ndash 5 91) and Q 5319 ndash 26 and 2251 with the story of the Satanic Verses ( pp 115 ndash 6) etc

54 M Abdel Haleem Understanding the Qur rdquoan London Tauris 1999 See more recently the ArabicndashEnglish Dictionary of Qur rdquoAnic Usage ed EM Badawi and MA Haleem Leiden Brill 2008

55 Abdel Haleem Understanding the Qur rdquoan 4456 In a similar fashion Abdel Haleem argues that the Qurrsquoanrsquos phrase in al-baqara (2) 109

ldquoForgive and pardon until God gives His commandrdquo is Godrsquos instruction to the Muslims in Mecca when they were facing persecution from pagans ( Understanding the Qur rdquoAn 61) This is a strange argument since the verse begins with a reference to the People of the Book ( presumably Jews or Christians but not pagans) More to the point there is no detail in this verse itself or any of the verses around it that would give it the historical context that Abdel Haleem imagines


With Armstrong and Abdel Haleem we have returned to a state that might be described as pre-Noumlldeke They assume like Noumlldeke that tafsCr is the key that unlocks the Qurrsquoanrsquos meaning but unlike Noumlldeke they offer little critical reading of tafsCr In fact if their works reect a bias (namely modernism) that would not be found among the classical mufassirEn their method is by no means different than that of medieval Muslim scholars

Yet even those scholars who propose radical re-readings of the Qurrsquoan often rely on the presuppositions of tafsCr The Lebanese scholar Joseph Azzi (also known under the pen name Abe Mesa al-7arcrc)57 argues that Musammad was actually the disciple of Waraqa b Nawfal (the cousin of Musammadrsquos frac14rst wife Khadcja who in the sCra confrac14rms Musammadrsquos original revelation) by his view a Judaeo-Christian58 Such ideas reect a radically (and for Muslims unacceptable) different view of the Qurrsquoan Yet Azzi still relies on the method of reading the Qurrsquoan through Musammadrsquos life that is so central to tafsCr He even cites Noumlldekersquos chronology of the Qurrsquoan as justication for his novel thesis

Cependant si nous nous reacutefeacuterons aux recherches des orientalistes notam-ment agrave celles du professeur Noumlldeke qui a classeacute les sourates du Coran par ordre chronologique nous deacutecouvrons une donneacutee extrecircmement important et signicative Nous nous rendons compte que les enseigne-ments du Coran de La Mecque sont les mecircmes que ceux de lrsquoEacutevangile des Heacutebreux59

What is to account for the dominance of this method In certain cases it seems to be connected with a particular religious orientation but this hardly explains the dependence of supposedly secular scholars on tafsCr To some extent this may be a case of academic inertia The method of reading the Qurrsquoan through tafsCr has been taught by almost every western scholar from Noumlldeke to Neuwirth and to doubt it might seem impudent But it seems to me that this method is above all favored simply because it is useful both

57 See Al-7arcrc Qass wa-nabCy trans J Azzi Le Precirctre et le Prophegravete58 See Ibn Hisham SCrat RasEl AllAh ed F Wuumlstenfeld Goumlttingen Dieterich 1858 ndash 60 153 ndash 4

English trans Ibn Issaq The Life of MuSammad trans A Guillaume Oxford Oxford University Press 1955 107 According to Azzi however Waraqa was actually the priest (qass) of a Jewish Christian community in Mecca and the translator of the Hebrew Gospel of the Nazoraeans which he incorporated into the Qurrsquoan Nazoraeans ( Nazwramoi) is the name used by Epiphanius (d 403) Theodoret of Cyrrhus (d ca 458) and John of Damascus (d 749) for a Jewish-Christian sect that existed in the early Christian centuries in Palestine and the Decapolis Azzi connects these references with the Qurrsquoanic term na2ArA De Blois takes a similar approach in ldquoNa2rAnC and SanCfrdquo 1ndash17

59 Azzi Le Precirctre et le prophegravete 121 Arabic Qass wa-nabCy 92 The more recent work of J Chabbi Le Coran deacutecrypteacute Figures bibliques en Arabie ( Paris Fayard 2008) is similar in method Chabbi pursues her (otherwise novel and scholarly) study of the Biblical back-ground to the Qurrsquoan with the historical context of Musammad always in mind


to apologetical scholars such as Armstrong and Abdel Haleem and polemical scholars such as Azzi Without the library of tafsCrs scholars might feel themselves in a sort of intellectual wilderness with no orienting landmarks to guide their thought

The remarks of Watt are revealing in this regard On the one hand Watt seems to recognize that the traditions which match certain segments of the Qurrsquoan with elements in the Prophetrsquos biography are the creation of tafsCr Thus in discussing the question of whether al-qalam (or ldquoalaq 96) or al-muddaththar (74) was rst revealed he comments

In fact neither of these may be the rst extant revelation and the stories may be only the guesses of later Muslim scholars since there are grounds for selecting each as rst Sura 96 begins with ldquoreciterdquo and this is appropriate for a book which is called ldquothe recitationrdquo or Qurrsquoan and sura 74 after addressing Musammad has the words ldquorise and warnrdquo ndash an appropriate beginning to the work of a messenger or warner60

Despite this admission Watt insists that the tafsCr method of dating the Qurrsquoan according to the Prophetrsquos life is ldquoby no means valueless and indeed forms the basis of all future workrdquo61 Apparently what Watt means is that the traditional dating should be used because it is helpful to the scholar But what if it is wrong

What if as John Burton puts it ldquoExegesis aspiring to become history gave us sCrardquo62 Indeed biographical reports on Musammad regularly serve the function of explaining unclear passages in the Qurrsquoan The story of the Yemeni king Abraharsquos invasion of Mecca with one () elephant seems to be an exegesis on al-fCl (105)63 The story of the angels who removed Musammadrsquos heart from his body and washed it in a golden basin of melted snow seems to be an exegesis on al-sharS (94) 1ndash 264 The story of Musammadrsquos rst revelation on Mt 7irarsquo according to which he saw the angel Gabriel as a massive form on the horizon and then demanded that Khadcja wrap him in a blanket seems to be an exegesis on al-ldquoalaq (96) 1ndash 5 al-najm (53) 1ndash18 and al-muddaththar (741 cf 731)65 The story of Musammadrsquos night journey to Jerusalem seems to be an exegesis on al-isrA (17) 1 and so forth66 Now

60 Watt and Bell Bellrsquos Introduction to the Qur rdquoan 10961 Ibid62 J Burton ldquoLaw and exegesis The penalty for adultery in Islamrdquo in GR Hawting and

AA Shareef (eds) Approaches to the Qur rdquoan London Routledge 1993 (269 ndash 84) 27163 Ibn Hisham SCrat RasEl AllAh 29 ndash 42 (trans 21ndash 30)64 Ibid 105 ndash 7 (trans 71ndash 3)65 Ibid 152 ndash 4 (trans 105 ndash 7)66 Ibid 263 ndash 71 (trans 181ndash 7) There is of course more that went into the Prophetrsquos bio-

graphy The story of Mt 7irarsquo as indicated by Waraqarsquos declaration that Musammad has received the nAmEs (cf Gk ndmoV ldquothe lawrdquo) is marked by a larger religious topos of the prophet receiving the revealed law on a mountain top etc


such traditions it goes without saying can be a proper guide for a pious reading of the Qurrsquoan But to the critical scholar they should suggest that tafsCr is a remarkable literary achievement to be appreciated in its own right These tafsCr traditions do not preserve the Qurrsquoanrsquos ancient meaning and to insist otherwise does a disservice both to tafsCr and to the Qurrsquoan

The standard response to this perspective (much like Wattrsquos reproach of Bell) is that there is no need to throw out the baby with the bath water The works of the mufassirEn can still connect us with the time of the Qurrsquoanrsquos origins True the interpretive traditions therein were affected by later legal mystical sectarian and theological currents that owed through the early Islamic community Yet at a fundamental level the historical record is intact All that is needed is a good critical reading to separate the exegesis from the history

The problem with this view is that the mufassirEn even the earliest mufas-sirEn are unable to understand basic elements of the Qurrsquoan Two examples might illuminate this point First is the case of the disconnected letters (Ar al-aSruf al-muqaVVa ldquoa or fawAtiS al-suwar) that appear at the opening of 29 Seras67 These letters seem to play an important role in the organization of the Qurrsquoan For example every consonantal form in the Arabic alphabet is represented at least once by these letters while no form is used for more than one letter68 Meanwhile Seras that begin with the same or similar letters are grouped together even when that grouping means violating the larger ordering principle of the Qurrsquoan (from longer to shorter Seras)69 Yet the classical mufassirEn do not know any of this They do not demonstrate any memory of the role these letters played in the Qurrsquoanrsquos organization Instead their commentary reects both confusion and creative speculation70

67 On this topic see eg A Jeffery ldquoThe mystic letters of the Qurrsquoanrdquo MW 14 1924 247 ndash 60 JA Bellamy ldquoThe mysterious letters of the Qurrsquoan Old abbreviations of the Basmalahrdquo JAOS 93 1973 267 ndash 85 M Seale Qur rdquoAn and Bible London Helm 1978 38 ndash 60 The most impressive treatment of this topic I believe is the concise analysis of A Welch ldquo9urrsquoanrdquo EI2 5412 ndash 4

68 Thus eg al-aSruf al-muqaVVa ldquoa include ي but not ت ب or ح ث but not ج or ر خ but not غ but not ع and ظ but not ط ض but not ص ش but not س ز

69 Thus Seras 13 ndash15 which are part of the al(m)r group of Q 10 ndash15 are shorter than Q 16 Seras 40 and 43 which are part of the Sm group of Q 40 ndash 6 are longer than Q 39

70 Abe Jalsquofar al-pabarc for example opens his discussion of this topic with the admission that ldquothe interpreters of the Qurrsquoan differ over the meaningrdquo of the disconnected letters He then reports over fourteen different interpretations of these letters and offers up to ve traditions for each interpretation These interpretations include that the letters represent different names for the Qurrsquoan or names of different Seras or names for God or a mystical way in which God makes a vow upon His own divinity or that the letters are each abbreviations for different words or a method of counting camels or that each letter has a numerical value thereby recording the length that certain nations will last or that the letters are simply a mystery known only to God In all pabarcrsquos discussion of the rst three disconnected letters takes over nine pages in the standard Beirut edition of his tafsCr He concludes this discus-sion with his own view that each letter is an abbreviation for more than one word This is


This book challenges the dominant scholarly notion that the Qurrsquoan must be interpreted through the medieval commentaries shaped by the biography of the prophet Musammad proposing instead that the text is best read in light of Christian and Jewish scripture The Qurrsquoan in its use of allusions depends on the Biblical know ledge of its audience However medieval Muslim commentators working in a context of religious rivalry developed stories that separate Qurrsquoan and Bible which this book brings back together

In a series of studies involving the devil Adam Abraham Jonah Mary and Musammad among others Reynolds shows how modern translators of the Qurrsquoan have followed medieval Muslim commentary and demonstrates how an appreciation of the Qurrsquoanrsquos Biblical subtext uncovers the richness of the Qurrsquoanrsquos discourse Presenting unique interpretations of thirteen dif-ferent sections of the Qurrsquoan based on studies of earlier Jewish and Christian literature the author substantially re-evaluates Muslim exegetical literature Thus The Qur rdquoAn and Its Biblical Subtext a work based on a profound regard for the Qurrsquoanrsquos literary structure and rhetorical strategy poses a substantial challenge to the standard scholarship of Qurrsquoanic Studies With an approach that bridges early Christian history and Islamic origins the book will appeal not only to students of the Qurrsquoan but to students of the Bible religious studies and Islamic history

Gabriel Said Reynolds is Associate Professor of Islamic Studies and Theology at the University of Notre Dame ( USA) He works on Qurrsquoanic Studies and MuslimndashChristian Relations and is the author of A Muslim Theologian in the Sectarian Milieu the translator of lsquoAbd al-Jabbarrsquos A Critique of Christian Origins and the editor of The Qur rdquoAn in Its Historical Context






























Acknowledgements




Contents








viii Contents







Abbreviations

Sources









x Abbreviations


















Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid







































































































































































Acknowledgements




Contents








viii Contents







Abbreviations

Sources









x Abbreviations


















Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid










































































































































Contents








viii Contents







Abbreviations

Sources









x Abbreviations


















Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid










































































































































viii Contents







Abbreviations

Sources









x Abbreviations


















Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid










































































































































Abbreviations

Sources









x Abbreviations


















Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid










































































































































x Abbreviations


















Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid










































































































































Abbreviations xi




Other abbreviations

CS Case Study

Nota bene














4 Ibid






















































































































































4 Ibid








































































































































